"Handel’s Messiah is arguably the world’s most popular choral work. But its story begins in the unlikely setting of a room above a pub in Chester, when the great Composer, detained by bad weather on his way to a season of concerts in Dublin, invites some unlikely local choristers to rehearse excerpts. It is not a success. So begins Handel’s struggle to stage the premiere of his great new work, confronted by seemingly insurmountable challenges, including the tricky librettist Charles Jennens, the actress Susannah Cibber who he trains to sing the most moving arias, and the mysterious Crazy Crow. ...

"With the St. John Passion the triad of Schütz’s settings of the Passion is now available within the framework of the complete recording of Schütz’s works by the Dresdner Kammerchor under the direction of Hans-Christoph Rademann. The Passions are testimony to Schütz’s highly musical artistic aspirations, they are works of his old age and maturity with which an entire musical epoch reaches its conclusion. ...

Location: In Greater Palm Springs, California, USA

The Suite Life is a thrilling intensive weekend dedicated to the harpsichord. Participants will be treated to performances and master classes by world-renowned harpsichordists including Elaine Funaro, Margaret Irwin-Brandon, Sonia Lee, Gilbert Martinez, Charles Metz, Webb Wiggins, and others. Whether you are simply an appreciator of the harpsichord, a performer new to the instrument or a professional harpsichordist, this is a weekend NOT TO BE MISSED. ...

"On Tuesday evening this week, I found myself at The Actors Centre in London’s Covent Garden watching a performance of Unknowing, a dramatization of Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben and Dichterliebe (in a translation by David Parry, in which Matthew Monaghan directed a baritone and a soprano as they enacted a narrative of love, life and loss. Two days later at the Wigmore Hall I enjoyed a wonderful performance, reviewed here, by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky with Julien Chauvin’s Le Concert de la Loge, of cantatas by Telemann and J.S. Bach.

What connects these two events? Well, on both occasions I found myself contemplating ...

"The most complete and authoritative edition of Mozart's works on 200CDs. In celebration of Mozart’s 225th anniversary, presented by Decca Classics and Deutsche Grammophon in partnership with the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation. This individually-numbered limited edition is a fusion of the latest scholarship with 240 hours of benchmark performances from 600 world-class artists and state-of-the-art sound recording. ...

"Russell Oberlin, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated countertenors, whose voice was famed for an earthy robustness that belied the ethereal heights to which it could ascend, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 88.

"Everywhere you turn, arts institutions are getting wildly creative about drawing new audiences – or is that wildly desperate? Anecdotal evidence from arts administrators suggests their audiences are in serious decline. And this week the Canadian Index of Wellbeing came out with a challenging report suggesting that the decline is real and part of a larger social trend. ...

"MI PALPITA IL COR: BAROQUE PASSIONS is a compelling journey into the rich corners of the mid- and late-Baroque period. Featuring an array of thrilling instrumental and vocal compositions, the album is driven by the performances of French-Canadian soprano Dominique Labelle and American early music ensemble Musica Pacifica, founded in 1990, based in San Francisco, and whose playing has been called “a small miracle of precision and musical electricity” by the Washington Post. ...

Musicologist Ralph Locke (Emeritus, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester) will deliver a talk entitled “Alexander the Great and the Indian Rajah Puru: Exoticism in a Metastasio Libretto as Set by Hasse and by Handel”in the Peabody Institute Musicology Colloquium series this coming Tuesday, December 6 at 5PM. ...

New Comma Baroque, the Chicago-based early music ensemble, is honored to announce its residency at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in La Grange. The partnership signifies the ensemble's dedication to bringing music directly into the communities, as well as making historically informed performance accessible to audiences. ...

"Capella de Ministrers - Carles Magraner present "Hic et Nunc Live in Concert", a memorial of their 30th anniversary, a live recording of the July 15 at FeMAP by Catalunya Music with a selection of instrumental works from their last record work around Ramón Llull, an amalgamation of music that unites sounds from all the coasts of the Mediterranean. A rich and vibrant medieval repertoire, with the peculiarity of having been recorded live. ...

"When the world’s oldest song-transmission method meets the world’s most progressive song-production tools and techniques, is it bliss, or a blowout?

The women’s vocal ensemble Kitka specializes in traditional Eastern European songs, some of which predate Christianity and have been passed down by oral tradition — from mouth-to-ear-to-mouth — for centuries. ...

"A law banning software used to exploit the secondary ticketing market has moved one step closer to reality, after arts minister Matt Hancock confirmed the government would consider implementing legislation. ...

"Launched on BBC Radio 3's Early Music Show, the call for entries to the 2017 NCEM Young Composers Award is now open. Applicants must register their interest before 5pm on Friday 24 February by emailing education@ncem.co.uk, stating which age category they wish to enter.

The 2017 award is presented by the National Centre for Early Music and BBC Radio 3 in partnership with The Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. ...

"Featuring two fascinating masses by Josquin, the Missa Di dadi and the Missa Une mousse de Biscaye, the latest The Tallis Scholars album has now been released on Gimell Records."

"Can great music be inspired by the throw of dice? The possibility clearly excited Josquin, who prefaced the tenor part in several of the movements of his Missa Di dadi with a pair of dice, each pair giving a different total score. And the scores show that he knew how gambling worked - they stop when one of the players has thrown a winning combination. Did he know this because he was living in a place where gambling was so commonplace it was even thought appropriate to refer to it in a Mass-setting? He may have been. Milan under the Sforzas in the late fifteenth century was well known to have been a hot-house of gambling, with the ducal family taking a leading role. Since there is good evidence that Josquin worked there throughout the 1480s, it seems very possible that he joined in with the fashion, at court and in private. ....

"Born in Belgium in 1822, César Franck spent his whole carreer in Paris, where he was the considered the symbol of the renewal of French music counterbalancing the crushing wagnerian influence. Organist, composer, pedagogue, he was also a major force in the rediscovery of Bach" ...

Esemble Anonymous invites you to a thematic concert "Karen Young Choir: "Lux Hodie - Celebration of Light". During the long nights of the Christmas celebrations, the notion of rebirth of light is borne, the hope of its return. It is a time to sing and to celebrate! ...

The year 2017 will mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann, one of the most prolific composers of the Baroque era.

Giovanni Antonini and Il Giardino Armonico have taken this opportunity to pay tribute to his eclecticism in a programme juxtaposing works that move constantly between French and Italian stylistic traditions.

On this disc, Giovanni Antonini not only directs the ensemble, but also returns to the recorder, his own instrument of choice (as it was the composer’s), and performs the Suite in A minor, the Concerto in C major and the Concerto da camera in G minor. ...

"The year ends in fine style with a programme of cantatas by J.S. Bach performed by Vox Luminis. The Belgian group directed by the bass Lionel Meunier is now acknowledged as belonging among the world’s elite vocal ensembles, especially for its interpretations of German Baroque sacred music. Its recording of works by the ancestors of J. S. Bach on Ricercar (RIC 347) won many awards. Vox Luminis now tackles Johann Sebastian himself, in a programme of cantatas composed in 1707/1708, which are thus among the composer’s earliest. ...

"At the end of the 18th century, English Longways Dances dominated the ballrooms, but from the year 1800 new dances were introduced: Francaises, big Quadrilles like Lanciers, Eugenie Quadrille and the exciting Country and Contra Dances. ...

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